


F l o w e r s [Spain x Reader x Netherlands]

by LadyLyacaria



Series: Hetalia Reader-Inserts [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Best Friends, Clubbing, Comedy, Drinking, Drunk Texting, Drunken Flirting, Drunkenness, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fanfiction, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Multi, Multiple Endings, Multiple Pairings, Neighbors, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Possibly Unrequited Love, Reader-Insert, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life, Slow Romance, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Unrequited, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 19:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13665639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLyacaria/pseuds/LadyLyacaria
Summary: For him, it was love at first sight. For you, it was how you met one of your best friends. You don't know how he feels about you, and he doesn't know that your affections lie elsewhere already. And to make things worse (for him), you start to make advances to someone. Not him, obviously, but to your neighbour. Of course, he won't let you go so easily - and neither will your neighbour let him meddle in his love affairs. ☼ ON HIATUS ☼Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. I only own the story and the OCs appearing in it.✶Comments are highly appreciated✶





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING! This fanfic is unfinished (as of yet) and has been on hiatus for a long time now. I cannot promise that I will ever finish it, but I still wanted to share it with you, my dear readers. I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless~! ♥

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

»buenas noches pichoncita :) would yolu please cvome pikc me up from mthe flux? I’gm far toao drunk to drive and i spent aill my money on booze. soryr ot disturb yuo i hopqe i didn’t wake ouy up chica«

The one who had sent you this text message indeed hadn’t woken you up since you hadn’t been asleep in the first place. It was barely 1am on a Friday night – or rather Saturday morning since it was past midnight –, and you usually went to bed in one or two hours.

Besides, you were already used to drunk texts from your friends – especially from your best friends Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert who went clubbing together every weekend without exception, and at least one of them in their drunken state ended up sending you messages. Some of those had been completely unintelligible for you at first, with mixed-up letters and all that stuff like in the text you had just received a few minutes ago (just far worse). But you had learned to decipher them over the time.

»Alright, I’m on my way,« you wrote back to Antonio and picked yourself off the floor where you had been lying comfortably whilst watching TV. »Just stay put. And don’t worry, I wasn’t sleeping. See you in a bit! « Pocketing your mobile phone with one hand, you turned off the TV with the other and then walked out of your room and downstairs into the main hallway.

After you had put on a [favourite colour] leather jacket and sneakers of the same colour, you grabbed your bunch of keys from the holder on the wall next to the front door and left your house. You got in your car shortly afterwards and set off towards one of the nightclubs your best friends frequented. This night they were in “The Flux.” Considering the time you were out, there wasn’t much traffic on the streets that were lit by the dim night-time city lights.

A short while later, you arrived at the nightclub “The Flux.” You parked your car right in front of a young man who was standing at the edge of the pavement and holding onto a lamp post for support. Leaning over, you opened the door on the passenger’s side for him and motioned him to get in. “C’mon, get your sexy ass in here.”

Antonio tore his emerald green eyes away from some unfixed point in the distance and directed them at you, a big smile spreading over his lips. “¡Hola, guapa!” he greeted you, his words slurred. “There you are.”

“Yep, here I am. You asked me to pick you up after all,” you replied, returning his smile, and patted the passenger seat. “Get in, Toni. I’ll bring you home.”

Antonio walked over to your car, surprisingly just with a slight stagger in his steps, and plopped down on the seat, pulling the car door closed behind him. “Can I perhaps crash at your place, pichoncita?” he asked as he leaned towards you. He nearly toppled over in the process if it weren't for you pushing him into an upright position again.

“Only if you buckle up,” you answered. “And don’t puke in my car like Gil once did. Ew.” You grimaced at the still awfully vivid memory. “I spent two hours cleaning my car and trying to get rid of that godawful stench,” you muttered, a sudden, bitter taste on your tongue. “Or at least try not to puke in here.”

The smile on his face got even brighter. “Anything for you, pichoncita,” he chimed happily. At the same time, he complied with your request to fasten his seatbelt, though rather slowly and clumsily. He needed five attempts to get the buckle to click into place. “I’d never throw up in your car like Gil did. Or really anything that belongs to you.”

You started heading back to your house in the outskirts of the city. “That’s good to hear. After that incident with Gil, I always keep a paper bag in the glove compartment, so if you really can’t hold it in anymore, grab that bag.”

“Will do, pichoncita.”

You had met Antonio and his best friends – who liked to call themselves the “Bad Touch Trio” for reasons you didn’t know and probably didn’t want to know either – about two years ago in a pub. One of your friends had dragged you there because she had wanted you to get a taste of the urban nightlife although you preferred to stay at home, watch some movies, and drink with a small group of friends and not with a bunch of strangers in a bar or wherever.

Back then, you ended up sitting at the far end of the bar alone, hunched over the same glass of beer you had already ordered hours ago and been sipping at since then, while your friend was busy flirting with some random guys. Eventually, she returned to you with three guys in tow and introduced you to them: an overly flirtatious Frenchman, a happy-go-lucky Spaniard, and an albino who claimed to be from Prussia.

You still didn’t know why she had chosen them of all people, of all the other guys she had chatted up, to introduce to you. But you were really glad she had. It was impossible for you to imagine where you would be now if you hadn’t met them.

You never accompanied them when they went to nightclubs and bars and the kind to get drunk and pick up girls because you were, as mentioned before, more of an inside person. (Yet you didn’t mind a nice walk in the forest or through another pretty landscape.) Plus, you weren’t the type to pick up guys or get picked up by them for a one-night stand.

As of lately, however, Antonio refrained from picking up girls and sometimes called you in the middle of the night to ask you to pick him up after carelessly spending the money he had wanted to use for a cab ride on more alcohol, just like this night. You didn’t know why he did that, but Francis and Gilbert seemed to know what was up with him. You had asked them, because Antonio usually avoided your questions and quickly changed the topic, but they had refused to tell you and merely smirked knowingly. To this day, you still had no clue as to why Antonio wasn’t following some girl to her apartment at the end of the night anymore like he had used to.

A sudden, firm pressure on your arm yanked you out of your thoughts when you were about to steer your car onto the driveway to your house. You jerked your head in Antonio’s direction. The tanned skin in his face had a greenish hue, and his hand that wasn’t seizing your arm was clamped over his mouth, as if –

Oh god.

No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chica = girl  
> pichoncita = dove  
> hola, guapa = hello, beautiful


	2. Chapter 2

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

“Grab the damn paper bag, Toni!” you screeched, but Antonio had already freed himself from the seat belt and was now scrambling out of the car although it was still moving, albeit slowly. He fell to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach on the pavement, dangerously close to the tulip bed of your neighbour, the Dutch Tim de Vries.

You stopped your car right then and there, halfway on the street and halfway on the pavement, and jumped out. Running over to Antonio, you knelt down next to him. The putrid smell of vomit made you gag, and you swallowed hard to ease the burning in your throat. Studiously ignoring the nauseating mess on the pavement, you placed a hand on Antonio’s shoulder and helped him sit up. “How are you?” you asked softly.

He leaned against you and rested his head on your shoulder. “Feeling a lot better,” he answered in a rather weak voice, still slurring his speech, and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his beige shirt. “Although there’s this bad aftertaste in my mouth now.”

“No more details, please. Why didn’t you use the paper bag?”

All of a sudden, Antonio’s eyes glazed over with tears. “I was in panic,” he blubbered, drooping and staring down at his hands as if he had just killed someone. “I didn’t want to end up like Gil getting your car all dirty. Lo siento muchísimo. It’s all my fault, pichoncita.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, Toni,” you reassured him, stroking his back. “There’s no need to cry. Don’t you worry. I’ll get rid of that in next to no time.”

He looked up at you with tearful eyes. “You’re not mad at me, chica?”

“Of course not.”

“You still like me?”

“Yes.”

He broke into one of the broadest smiles you had ever seen, and his sadness was gone in the wink of an eye. It was like he hadn’t been nearly crying just a second ago. He flung his arms around you and almost broke your spine in the process. “I’m so glad to hear this, pichoncita!”

‘I swear, drunk people have the craziest mood swings,’ you thought to yourself. You couldn’t help but smile at Antonio’s behaviour, although your ribcage was currently being a little – just a little – crushed by his bear hug. “Toni, your hugs are the best, but you’re kinda suffocating me,” you breathed, patting his back.

Immediately, he let go of you. “Perdón,” he sniffled as tears welled up in his green eyes once again.

“No, no, no, please don’t cry again,” you hastily said. You really had no use for a drunken, crying man cowering on the pavement next to a vile-smelling puddle of vomit, not at the moment, and especially not in the dead of night. “Everything’s alright, Toni,” you cooed and hugged him close. “Don’t worry.”

After he had calmed down within a couple of seconds, you stood up and pulled him to his feet. But then a flash of light caught your eye. The lights had been switched on in one of the rooms on the second floor of your neighbour’s house. A dark silhouette was moving around in that room, indicating that your neighbour Tim had woken up, likely from the ruckus in front of his house.

Having followed your gaze to Tim’s house, Antonia now straightened his wrinkled clothes (in vain) and ran a hand through his curly, chocolate-coloured hair as if he wanted to face your neighbour, but you shook your head at him. He tilted his head and looked at you in a puzzled manner, posing a silent question.

“I’ll settle this myself.” You gave him your bunch of keys. “You go into my house, and I’ll catch up to you in a couple minutes, alright, Toni? I’ve got some leftover tomato salad in the fridge, if you wanna eat it.”

His eyes lit up at the word “tomato.” Whatever you wanted him to do, coaxing him with tomatoes was the best way because it always worked, without a fault. He gave you a quick hug before staggering towards your house as fast as possible in his drunkenness.

You, on the other hand, turned back to your neighbour’s house as soon as Antonio was out of sight. Carefully sidestepping the many flower beds to get on the paved path leading to the front door, you approached the house.

You knew that Tim treasured his flowers since you saw him working in his garden every single day. The two of you talked a little bit from time to time, but it merely was the neighbourly and polite type of conversations. If someone dared to step on his sacred flowers or harm them in any other way, a glare from him was enough to make the culprit apologize profusely. He seemed like a rather intimidating fellow most of the time, but there always was a small smile on his lips when he was tending to his beloved flowers.

Of course, you didn’t know that he was smiling every time he was doing some work in his garden because you sometimes watched him from behind slightly drawn curtains so that he couldn’t see you, of course not! You merely happened to see that faint smile curling his lips from thirty feet away, nothing more. You had pretty good eyes. That was all.

Okay, well, maybe you had a tiny little crush on him. He seemed pretty nice despite his aloof demeanour at times and definitely was good-looking, but he hadn’t shown any interest in more than just polite neighbour-talk.

You had tried to get from the petty “Good weather today” level to a more personal one a few times, only resulting in him saying, “I don’t think that kind of information has anything to do with the situation at hand,” or something along those lines at first. But when you had finally got him to answer your question because of your persistence, he had done so only rather reluctantly and hadn’t asked you any question of his own, so you had given up on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lo siento muchísimo = I’m awfully sorry  
> pichoncita = dove  
> chica = girl  
> perdón = sorry


	3. Chapter 3

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

The front door was opened as you stepped into the light of the lamp on the wall right next to the door. Tim, only dressed in a bathrobe and briefs (and thus showing off his well-toned chest), appeared in the doorway. A waft of earth, freshly cut grass, and smoke came along with him, engulfing you. His usually blonde, spiky hair was all mussed up, and his piercing green, yet bleary eyes stared down at you.

“Good, uh, morning, Mr. de Vries,” you greeted him to which he replied with a simple nod of his head. Trailing off, you found yourself ogling his abs and cleared your throat awkwardly whilst lifting your gaze back up to his face, successfully suppressing a blush. “I’m awfully sorry for bothering you this late at night and for the ruckus in front of your house. My friend is drunk and just threw up in front of your garden. I will clean this mess up right away.”

Tim looked at you in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time, and an unpleasant thought began preying on your mind. Perhaps you had angered him in some way. Was he contemplating suing you and Antonio? Oh god, you really hoped he wasn’t.

“Alright,” he finally said with another brief nod, and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding in, quietly sighing in relief that he didn’t want to sue you. “You can use my garden hose,” he added, pointing to a neatly coiled hose lying on the cut grass a few feet away. It was connected with the water tap protruding from the wall right above it.

“Thank you very much,” you said and gave him a friendly smile. This went better than you had expected – you didn’t have to get your own cleaning utensils. “Again, I’m very sorry for bothering you, Mr. de Vries. Good night.”

“Good night.” He closed the door. You could hear his heavy footsteps moving away from the front door.

You quickly got to work, taking the hose and walking over to the nasty mess Antonio had left on the pavement, luckily near a street drain. The sooner you got over with it, the sooner you could return to your other duties – like parking your car properly on the driveway and making sure that Antonio didn’t mess things up again, especially not in your house.

You had intentionally sent Antonio to your house before facing Tim and refrained from mentioning his name because Tim didn’t seem to like him at all. Because of that, you weren’t sure how he would have reacted if he had known that Antonio was this friend of yours who had nearly ruined his dear flowers.

One time, a few weeks ago, Antonio and you had walked past Tim’s house as he had been watering his flowers. While Tim had returned your polite greeting, he had just narrowed his eyes at Antonio and hadn’t said anything to him. Antonio had assured you that he had never met Tim before, and you’d had the feeling that he hadn’t lied. Maybe there was something like hate at first sight.

When the deed was finally done and the vomit had been washed away into the drain (hopefully along with the terrible smell), you put the water hose back. You tried to roll it up as neatly as it had been before, but failed to do so. Hence, you just put it on the ground beneath the tap as neatly coiled as you could manage and hoped that Tim wouldn’t be annoyed by finding this in the morning.

You returned to your car to continue where you had left off when Antonio had been overwhelmed by an unexpected nausea, driving onto the driveway of your house and parking it there. Then, you entered your house through the ajar front door. Apparently, Antonio had forgot to take your keys with him and just left them outside dangling from the lock. After you had taken your bunch of keys, you pulled the door shut behind you.

The very first thing you noticed was the fact that it was quiet – too quiet for your liking, considering there was supposed to be a very drunk and also a bit hyper Spaniard in here. Cue a cold shiver running down your back and your eyes widening as sudden fear struck you.

What if Antonio had hurt himself? Maybe he had tripped and hit his head and was now unconscious. Or what if he had climbed through a window and was running around in the neighbourhood? You had to catch him before he got up to nonsense. But first, you had to check your house to see if he was still in here.

Without even bothering to take off your shoes and jacket, you blindly chucked the bunch of keys in the direction of the holder on the wall and began checking every single room, the first being the kitchen where you found the leftover tomato salad in the fridge gone. ‘I guess that's a good sign,’ you thought.

Your search for Antonio was over and successful as soon as you walked through the doorway next to the kitchen bar into the living room. There he was, indeed unconscious, but not the type of unconscious you had feared he would be. He was sleeping peacefully on the couch, an empty bowl standing on the coffee table and next to it his hand clutching a fork.

You shook your head, a smile playing on your lips. “Oh boy,” you muttered under your breath, heaving a long sigh. “And here I was already thinking of the worst case scenarios.” You tiptoed over to him and took the folded blanket hanging over the armrest of the couch, using it to tuck him in. “Good night, Toni.”

Leaning over him, you gave him a short kiss on the forehead, only to jump a little when he groggily mumbled: “Buenas noches.”

You patted his head affectionately, left the living room with quiet steps, and turned off the lights on your way out, discarding your jacket and shoes in the hallway, locking the front door and then going upstairs into your bedroom where you changed into your pyjamas. You lied down in your bed and made yourself comfortable, snuggling up to the pillow and wrapping yourself up in the blankets. Soon, you had fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buenas noches = good night


	4. Chapter 4

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

The next morning, you were standing in the kitchen, dressed and prepared for the day, and making breakfast for both Antonio and you, although you didn’t know when he was going to wake up. Just then, a pretty hung-over Spaniard trudged into the room, scuffing his feet over the tiled floor. Speak of the devil.

“Good morning, Toni,” you said extra quietly to not make his headache worse and poured a quarter of a cup filled with batter mix into a pan standing on the stovetop. “I’m making crêpes.”

“Buenos días, preciosa,” Antonio replied in a gruff voice and stifled a yawn. You heard him walking up to you and your back began to tingle lightly as an indication of his presence behind you. Seconds later, he rested his chin on your shoulder and his hands on your hips, pressing his firm chest against your back.

Antonio was like a totally different person when he was hung-over, and so were Francis and Gilbert. To be honest, it had freaked you out a lot the very first time you had seen them this way because you had only been used to the carefree Antonio, the egoistic Gilbert, and the overly affectionate Francis, and you’d suddenly and utterly unexpectedly had to handle the complete opposites of their personalities.

“Hey, easy there, Toni,” you laughed, wriggling free of his grip and playfully jabbing your elbow in his ribs. “I’m not one of those girls you picked up last night. You can’t pull that on me.” You turned your full attention back to the pan, but added, “There’s a glass of water and some painkillers on the countertop over there.”

The tingly feeling in your back caused by Antonio’s very close proximity to you vanished when he stepped back. “Gracias.” From the corner of your eye, you saw him downing the entire glass of water along with two painkillers and then sitting down at the kitchen bar.

There was a pleasant silence between the two of you. The only sounds you heard were the clattering of cutlery against the frying pan and the quiet sizzling of cooking oil in said pan, until you finished making breakfast. Playing the last crêpe on top of a small crêpe tower on a plate, you carried said plate and two empty ones over to the bar while Antonio got a package of powdered sugar, a little sieve, a bottle of chocolate syrup, and two forks.

You sat down next to him at the kitchen bar. After shovelling a couple of crêpes on your plate, you dusted them with lots of powdered sugar and drowned them in chocolate syrup.

Antonio did the same, but not as exaggerated as you. He even shot you a look with a raised eyebrow à la “Are you serious?” to which you bowed your head in affirmation and shoved half of a crêpe dripping with dark brown syrup into your mouth.

The breakfast was spent in silence as well. Antonio was a man of very few words when hung-over, and you didn't want to carry on a one-sided conversation and trying to get him to talk would be like pulling teeth. You noticed that he was constantly rubbing over the dark circles under his dull eyes and yawning, obviously still tired as hell.

After he had finished up his crêpes, he made a move to take the dishes, most likely to put them into the dishwasher, but you placed a hand on his arm and said: “Thanks, but I’ll do that. You better go catch some z’s to get rid of that nasty hangover.”

A rather forced-looking, yet genuine smile flitted across his face as he handed you the plates and forks. “Muchas gracias y hasta más tarde.”

“No problem, Toni. And, by the way, I’m gonna go into town later, just so you know. I’ll be back soon though.”

He gave you a brief nod of his head, strolled over to the couch, and unhesitatingly hurled himself onto it, causing it to give an alarmingly loud creak. Without doubt, he fell asleep near-instantly.

After cleaning up the kitchen, you threw on the same leather jacket from very earlier this morning, slipped into heeled boots and put your mobile phone, your bunch of keys and your wallet in your pockets. You checked on Antonio one last time – he was sleeping soundly – and then, you left your house and drove into the city.

About fifteen minutes later, you reached your destination, having parked your car at the outskirts of the town center and moving through the streets by foot. You were standing in front of a little flower shop that you would have easily failed to see because it was squeezed between two bigger and more eye-catching stores, if Tim hadn’t told you the other day that he was buying his flowers and seeds here. You hoped that you also would be able to get what you were looking for in this shop.

Without further ado, you entered. A pleasantly chilly temperature replaced the warmth of the sun and of many people moving around in one place; it was accompanied by the scent of countless different flowers, almost overwhelming you. Shelves, tables, wooden boxes, and every other possible storage place was crammed full with large buckets of flowers of all kinds and colours, even the ground, thus only leaving a narrow path to the checkout counter. You had never seen so freaking many flowers in one place before. You hadn’t even deemed it possible to fit this many flowers in this small shop.

While eyeing the plethora of beautiful flowers and looking for something that caught your eye, you manoeuvred around the buckets as cautiously as humanly possible. You didn’t want to knock over one of these water- and flower-filled buckets under any circumstances.

“Good day! What can I do for you, Miss?”

Upon suddenly hearing a female voice, you lifted your head to look at the young woman who had mysteriously appeared behind the counter although you hadn’t heard footsteps or any other noise that could have indicated her appearance. “Good day, Miss,” you returned her greeting, smiling at her. “I’m looking for a bouquet as a gift.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buenos días, preciosa = good morning, gorgeous  
> gracias = thanks  
> muchas gracias y hasta más tarde = thanks a lot, and see you later


	5. Chapter 5

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

“What is the occasion?”

“I’m afraid I’ve crossed my neighbour a little, and since he’s very interested in flowers, I wanted to give him a bouquet to appease him,” you explained to who you assumed was the owner of this little store. “He told me that he’s coming here often to buy flowers, so you might know him. His name is Tim –”

“De Vries, right?” the brunette woman cut you off. The corners of her mouth turned upwards as a smirk slowly built on her lips.

You nodded. “Exactly.”

“He’s not only one of my best customers, he’s also my dear brother.” She extended her hand to you. “I'm Alice Lebeau, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Alice,” you replied, shaking hands with her. “I'm [First name] [Last name]. So, can you help me with choosing the right flowers for Tim?”

“Absolutely. I know how to find just the right flower for him.” The smirk on her lips grew wider for unknown reasons, and it made you quirk an eyebrow at her inquisitively, but she chose to ignore it. Instead, she pointed to a particular set of flower buckets with a sweeping movement of her hand. “Tulips are his all-time favourite flowers.”

There were white, yellow, orange, pink, red, blue, black, and even multi-coloured tulips, with two buckets for every colour. You crouched down to examine them better and gingerly touched the silky smooth petals of a yellow tulip.

“What would you recommend?” you asked eventually, after vacantly staring at the tulips, lost in thought, and looked up at Alice for help. “I’m kind of spoilt for choice here. What is his favourite colour, perhaps? Does it happen to be one of the tulip’s colours?”

“His favourite colours are red, white, and blue,” she answered. She had reduced her broad grin to a smile in the meantime, though there still was something sly to it that boded ill, but you shook off the unfounded feeling of sneaking suspicion. “Want me to make a bouquet out of them?”

“Yes, please,” you answered whilst standing up.

“Will do!” Alice gathered some tulips of the three mentioned colours and nimbly arranged them to a lovely bouquet with other ornamental plants and flowers on the checkout counter. “Here you go, [Name],” she said as she gave you the bouquet wrapped in white waxed paper. “I’m sure Tim will forgive you.”

“I really hope so.” You paid for the bouquet and beamed at her. “Thank you very much for your help, Alice. I appreciate it. Have a nice day.”

She smiled brightly at you. “You’re welcome, and same to you.”

You two waved at each other when the entrance doors to the store automatically slid open in front of you. Then, you stepped out into the bustling street and set off for Tim’s house. Fortunately, the bouquet survived the crowds in the streets on the way to your car and the car ride back home completely unscathed. You wouldn’t want to give Tim an even just scarcely damaged bouquet since he loved flowers so much and probably wouldn’t accept it anyways.

You parked your car on your driveway as usual and walked over to Tim’s house with the bouquet of tulips in one hand, using the other to ring the doorbell. You patiently waited for him to open the door, swaying back and forth on the balls of your feet and promptly stopping as soon as the door was opened.

Tim looked you straight in the eye at first (kind of making you jump a little, mind you). But then he took notice of the bouquet in your arms and stared at it instead, hints of surprise registering on his face and his green eyes widening just a tiny little bit.

“Good day, Mr. de Vries,” you said cheerfully and held out the bouquet to him. “I wanted to give you this as a token of my apologies for the trouble I caused you earlier this morning. I’ll try my best to never let something like that happen again.”

The smouldering cigarette between his lips wandered from one corner of his mouth to the other. His gaze was fixated on you again. “Where’d you get that?” he asked.

“Uh …” You were taken aback by this unexpected question of his. You had actually expected a yes or a no concerning your offer, but you still answered him, “I drove to the flower shop you told me about the other day. Your sister is working there, and she arranged this bouquet for me.”

Nodding slowly, he took the bouquet from your hands. “Dank je wel. And please call me Tim.”

Wow, this was something you hadn’t expected either. ‘Seems like I’m finally on a personal basis with him. But why this sudden change of thought though?’ you wondered. “You’re welcome, Tim,” you replied, a smile tugging at your lips. “You can call me [Name], of course. So, you accepted my apology, right? You’re not mad at me?”

“I never was in the first place,” Tim said as he swiftly leaned back to put the bouquet down on something standing in the hallway of his house. “It’s not your fault that your friend threw up in front of my house.”

You scratched your cheek bashfully. “Well, that’s right.”

He then proceeded to look at you for some moments, seemingly deeply absorbed in his thoughts and not saying a single word until he finally spoke up, “Are you allergic to animal hair?”

You shook your head in negation, yet arched an eyebrow in an inquisitive manner, but of course, your silent question was as always ignored. Maybe you should start to actually ask them loudly and not just silently …

“Do you want to come in? I just made some [coffee/tea].”

You glanced towards your house. You had said to Antonio that you would be gone only for a short while, but he was still sleeping in all probability, meaning that he wouldn’t notice. It wouldn’t do any harm to drink a cup of [coffee/tea] with Tim, would it?

“Sure thing,” you smiled. “Thanks a lot for the invitation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dank je wel = thank you


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, as of yet, the last (complete) chapter I've written; the next one is far from finished.

_flow·er_

_noun_

_/flaʊər/_

_the part of a plant that is often brightly coloured and has a pleasant smell, or the type of plant that produces these_

* * *

Tim stepped aside to let you inside, closing the door behind you. After you had taken off your jacket and your shoes, he led you to the far end of the hallway and through a door into the living room. “Make yourself at home,” he said while pointing over to a couch set in a corner of the room. “I will be right back.”

As he left the room, you sat down on one of the couches and made yourself comfortable. Looking around, you noticed that there was an abundance of books about gardening, flowers, plants and all that stuff in the shelves next to the flat screen TV. Also, plenty of indoor plants, from small potted ones to larger foliage ones, were standing about the room.

Upon closer inspection, however, you discovered that the lower leaves of the plants that were standing on the ground seemed to be … gnawed on? Something had eaten away at the leaves. Barely a second later, you knew who the culprit was – or rather what.

A repetitive clicking sound on the laminate floor made you turn toward the source. A white rabbit lolloped over to you, careful not to slip, its light brown, drooping ears pointed forwards. It had a spot on his back which strongly resembled the shape of a heart.

“Aw! What a cute little bunny you are! Come over here, sweetie pie,” you warbled and crouched down on the floor, luring the rabbit with your outstretched hand. “You’re allowed to roam freely through the house, huh? And once in a while, you take a snack from the plants.”

The rabbit nosed at your fingers and, ultimately, rubbed the underside of its chin across the tips of your fingers, more or less marking you as a part of its territory. It then nudged the palm of your hand with its nose, flicking its ears about.

“Wanna play, my little cutie pie?” You sat down on the couch again and patted the spot right beside you. “C’mere.” You really hadn't expected the rabbit to react immediately to your request by leaping up on the couch right where your hand was, and you almost weren’t able to withdraw your hand in time. You laughed quietly to yourself. “You’re either very eager to get petted or you’re just trained well, cutie,” you said and ran a hand through the rabbit’s fluffy and soft fur, adding with a chuckle: “Or both. I wonder what your name is.”

“Her name is Katelijn.” Tim’s voice made you lift your gaze. He was standing in the doorway, a tray with two cups of steaming [coffee/tea], spoons, a sugar bowl, and a small can of evaporated milk in his hands.

You looked back at Katelijn who seemed to be happy all around with you petting her. “A cute name for a cute bunny,” you noted with a fond smile on your lips, scratching the base of her ears which promptly caused her to flop over on her side, looking thoroughly satisfied. This sudden display of content drew a short laugh from you. “She’s a Holland Lop, right?”

“Ja,” he affirmed as he set down the tray on the coffee table and began to arrange the objects from the tray on the table. “Do you have rabbits too?”

“I used to have four when I was a kid,” you told him, reminiscing about your beloved pet rabbits. “Not all at the same time, though. I had a pair of them most of the time. Two died, not of old age sadly, and I had to give the other two back to the animal shelter.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He squeezed your shoulder lightly and sat down right beside you, so close that your heartbeat sped up and a tad too close for just a neighbourly type of relationship.

“Don’t worry.” You repeatedly glanced at your knee touching his whilst trying your best not to blush because of the physical contact. “I could, uh, show you some pictures of them the next time we meet,” you said, but it sounded more like a question than an offer. You prepared your cup of [coffee/tea] and sipped at it to wet your now dry mouth. “If you want to see them, that is.”

Tim’s hand holding his cup stopped mid-air on its way to his mouth. As soon as you noticed that he seemed to feel uncomfortable, your breath hitched in your throat, and unsettling thoughts began clouding your mind. Had you asked that question too soon? Had his invitation merely been an act of politeness due to your gift? Did he really have not the slightest interest in you, neither in a friendly relationship with you nor in a romantic one? Had you just aggravated him in some way?

But then he woke from his rigid state, took a sip of his [coffee/tea], and responded, sending a faint smile your way, “I’d love to.”

With that, all of your worries went up in smoke, and you returned his smile, probably with a really broad and silly one. “Awesome!” you exclaimed happily, all the while petting Katelijn who always brought to your notice that you had unconsciously stopped by nudging your hand until you started stroking her fur again. “You can come over any time you like. When my car is standing on the driveway, I’m home too.”

Tim nodded, still smiling slightly.

It made you happy to know that he apparently shared your intention of getting to know each other better. The prospect of spending time with Tim and talking to him, not just these nearly everyday greetings and the trivial small talk, but actually talking about personal things like hobbies and all that stuff, sent waves of pleasant heat radiating through your chest.

You hoped this would lead to the two of you dating some day, you really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ja = yes


End file.
